Friday, July 08, 2005

Guess what, we were right and the Life (destruction of women's lives) Group were wrong. Selling emergency contraceptives in pharmacies hasn't led to an increase in risky behaviour or sexually transmitted diseases. It even says so on the BBC. In fact what has clearly happened is that since the same number of M.A.P.s are being distributed, we must be saving doctor's valuable time and cutting the cost of healthcare in the UK. Except, of course, for those who are refusing to sell it. To go back to the point of a previous post (and re-iterate a point made by a commentor...) distributing drugs is the job of a pharmacist. If you don't want to distribute the full range of legally available drugs, get a different job.

Well I was thinking because as soon as we let one pharmacist do this, we'll discover that a bunch of others have done it to, maybe because the media has told them it represents "high moral standards". And suddenly there isn't a pharmacy for 50 miles that'll help you. And so you haven't got time to go get the M.A.P. in your lunchhour or while your mum is out and so you risk it and end up with an unwanted child...!

Read the original story again, the woman did get the M.A.P. from another pharmacy but wasn't able to do so until the following morning. Which was too late and it was ineffective and hence ended up pregnant.

Let's not forget that the main reason she got pregnant was because she had sex without contraception. She now wants someone else to compromise their beliefs so that she can correct a situation for which she is entirely to blame, and could easily have been avoided. Why not compel people who don't want to become pregnant to use contraception? Seems about as libertarian as forcing individual pharmacists to go against what they believe to be right. Soon the left will be forcing Jews and Muslims to eat pork unless they can give some rational explanation for not doing so. Who is going to save us from the bossiness of the righteous left?

And Handrummer, you ask someone to do something and they say no. That's not them being authoritarian, that's them exercising their freedom. How typical of the authoritarian left to want freedom itself, but to find others exercing theirs to be intolerable.

Oh dear Simon, you betray yourself so easily! "she is entirely to blame"...what about her partner? Doesn't it take TWO people to make a baby? Speaking of typical, how typical of the misogynist right to blame HER for a situation THEY have gotten into.

But anyway, no, read the story again and you'll see that they went to the pharmacy after their "contraceptive failed".

I did anticipate your 'it takes two people' stance but I thought you'd think me sexist if I suggested that the woman wasn't totally in control of what happened to her body. Presumably you would be in favour of a man having a right to a 50% say in any abortion decision, or does a woman retain 100% responsibility for this?

As for using a failed contraceptive, that really means not using a contraceptive. She used a method that is not 100% efffective, and I expect she knew this before having sex. Sounds like you want someone else to take responsibility for the consequences of this woman's freely chosen actions. You're not suggesting she is some kind of feckless creature who has to be cared for like a child are you? That would be sexist in itself.

Yawn yawn. No method of contraceptive is 100% reliable. So what you're saying is that a woman who doesn't feel emotionally, financially and mentally able to raise a child for the next 18 years shouldn't have sex at all. Presumably you never get laid, although based on your earlier comments I was guessing that anyway!

No, I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that no woman who becomes pregnant has the right demand any abortion or morning after pill from a particular person of their choosing. Any pharmacist or health professional who declines to involve themself in the ending of someone else's pregnancy must have their right to do so respected. To do otherwise would impose on someone the obligation to perform abortions, and that is authoritarian, in the best traditions of the freedom loving left.

As for speculating on someone elses sex life in such a tiresome manner, I suggest you confine that to troublesome hecklers during your stand up comedy routines.

What if I am a Jehovah's Witness and I want to get a job in a blood donation centre? Of course its against my religion for people to have blood transfusions so I won't be actually taking any blood. I'll just stand at the door and turn people away.

Or does your excitement about individual freedoms only extend to those which make WOMEN's lives a misery? It's called misogyny and it stinks.

I'm not excited by individual freedoms, just terrified of having them taken away by Blair or other authoritarians like you.

I wouldn't hire a Jehovah's Witness if I was recruiting for a job involving blood transfusions. If you ever hire your own personal pharmacist, I'd advise you to check if that person was prepared to carry out whatever duties you might require. If you ask a pharmacist you don't employ to do something and they don't have to do, then you have to reasect their right to say no if they want to. It's called freedom. I know you Guardian types don't like ordinary people having freedom, but we like having it. We might be better off doing exactly what sensible, fair-minded, well-educated, politically correct, bossy lefties want us to do, but we like making our own decisions thank you very much.

The pharmacist I know is self-employed and does government NHS work as a contractor, just as most GPs and dentists do. Who employs the pharmacist at your local Boots? Is that the NHS? Anyway, if the NHS terms and conditions of employment allow employees not to be involved in abortion work, then that is a mutually agreed position between employer and employee which you have to respect. If you employ your own personal pharmacist, you can ask him or her to do anything as part of their job, and if they agree it is OK. Maybe a bit of housework or gardening for you on days when your pharmaceutical needs are not so demanding.

On a practical level, I'm sure the NHS would hate to lose many experienced staff, one of them my sister, if there was any attempt to alter their contracts to compel them to do abortion work.

This is getting rather tiresome Simon. The NHS asks people before it hires them whether they have any objections to any part of the work and then works around that information to ensure that all the jobs they need done are done and that people's preferences are respected. IF this pharmacy - and the article doesn't say whether it is an NHS pharmacy or not, it's not really relevant - has a second pharmacist on hand at all times who will prescribe the MAP, then fine, they would have been in a position to hire someone who doesn't wish to do so. clearly that's not the case. also the article doesn't seem to me to suggest that this was a pre-existing agreement before the pharmacist in question was hired. so if you're no longer prepared to do your job, you should be replaced by someone who is.